The Rest of Your Life
by Falkan
Summary: Hermione wants revenge on Malfoy for what he did to Ron. She wants to get dirt on him and get him to admit that he tortured Ron to near-insantiy. To do that, shes going to have to get close to him and into his personal life. But something goes wrong...
1. In the Beginning

**Disclaimer: I don't own the charachters, but i do own the plot. Steal it, and I'll sue.**

Hermione reached across her bed tothe bedside table, truning off the alarm clock. She looked at the clock. 6:15 it said. She dragged herself out of bed and into the shower. As she shampooed her hair, she thought of what had happened almost a year ago.

_The phone rang while she was sitting in the hot tub that was sunken into her back patio. She picked up the cordless phone that was on the edge. The voice on the other side belonged to her close freind, Harry Potter._

_"Hermione?"_

_"Yes?"_

_"Where's Ron?"_

_"I haven't a clue, why?"_

_"Oh, shit. Ok, I'm coming over. Get ready to leave, but make sure you wear something you can move around in."_

_"Wha--" CLICK. She didn't know what else to do, so she ran inside her house and quickly got dressed in a pair of snug jeans and a low cut tank top. She saw a picture of the three of them from their school days on top of her dresser. her body had really grown up since then, and she didnt mind showing it off either. Her hair had since then become sleek and shiny,and about shoulder length. Compared to then, her hair was perfectly straight. She was still smart, but if you didn't know her, you would never had guessed. She heard a knock on the door as she was pulling back her hair. She went to the door to let Harry in, but when she opened the door, he pulled her out instead and said something quickly.  
_

_"What? I caught none of that except Malfoy and Ron somewhere in there."_

_"I said Malfoy challenged Ron to a duel a few weeks ago after a bet on a Quidditch match went awry, and now I can't find Ron or Malfoy anywhere, and the only place I haven't looked is where they arranged the duel!"_

_She just stood there for a second thinking. "And why didn't you just tell me to come with you?"_

_"I thought you would have wanted and explanation"_

_"Just shut up and go already!" She held on tightly to his arm as she apparated to a place that, judging by the size of the mansion on the hilltop across from them, was seomwhere behind the Malfoy Manor, which, to her knowledge was inhaibted only by Draco. Before them were two men, about 20 years old each, and both at each others wand point. They were about 10 feet away from each other, and appeard to be yelling at each other._

_"I told you, Weaselbee, I'm not going to-" he stopped, appearing to have noticed the two that had apparated onto the edge on the clearing. "Well, looks like Pot-head Potter got himself a girlfreind."_

_"I told you never to mention that ever again," Harry said, drwing his own wand. _

_She vividly remembered that time back in Hogwarts in their last year, when Malfoy was close enough to trust with somthing like this. With a load of spells placed on the door to the head boy/girl common room, Harry had revealed a stash of drugs he had brought back from his vaction to America with Sirius. The night ended up with several stories told and unmentionable events that happened. _

A/N: Sorry, this is getting complex, but thats going to come up later and some things just need to be explained

_"And I'm _not_Harry's girlfreind. Just because you haven't seen me in five years gives you no reason to forget me Malfoy."_

_Malfoy's jaw dropped. "Granger? Wow, for a Mudblood, you're pretty hot." This made Hermione draw her wand out of spite. " Now that you have been kind enough to show me your wands, " he muttered a spell and all other wands in the clearing came zooming to his outstreached hand. "Honestly, Granger, you should have expected that. Now, you two, get over here," He directed them to an are off to the side with his wand," And don't go anywhere." Before they could react, he had them both in full body locks with two quick spells said under his breath. _

_'Damn he's fast,'she thought,'but how am I going to get my wand back? We need to get out of here.' She and Harry, both being Aurors, had begun training with wandless magic, but they were still in the very basics. Luckily, she had read most ofthe book they had been given to study, but unfortuntaly had not had time to work on the spells she found. 'Well, here goes nothing' She began trying to summon her wand, but it did not come. She treid several wandless counter-curses they had learned, but none worked. Then out of nowhere, Ron began to scream as if his body were being torn apart. She francically began to summon her wand and saw it move closer inch by inch, until she finally yelled as loud as she could with her jaw frozen, and it flew into her hand. She gave the counter-curse and sprang up, ready to hit Malfoy with whatever she could think of, but he was already by Ron. He grabbed Ron's arm and disappeared into thin air. _

_"CURSE YOU DRACO MALFOY!" she yelled into the night sky as loud as she could._

_"I'M GOING TO MAKE YOU REGRET THIS FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!"_

She turned off the shower and climbed out to get ready for work. As she ate breakfast, she remembered with a shudder that they had found Ron six months later, half-insane from torture. She was going to land Malfoy in Azkaban for life for this, if it was the last thing she did.


	2. Detective Johnson

Hermione grabbed her keys as she headed out the door to work. Yeah, she could use magic to get places, she would tell wizards when they asked why she drove, but she preferred the relaxing drive over instantly arriving. She made a fair amount of money as an auror, as was shown by her rather large house out on the country side and the fine clothes she wore, and especially the car she drove. It was a Porche 911 Turbo GT Roadster (sorry, couldn't resist, what else would a car fanatic author give to a hot rich chick?). She had most of her salary converted to pounds at Gringotts, so she would have money to spend in both worlds. She arrived at the ministry parking lot around 45 minutes later, having to wind through the streets to get to the right side alley. She had arranged to be able to park her car with the ministy's so she wouldn't have to leave it in the visior entrance side alley every day.

After walking through the vast foyer of the ministry and taking a lift, she arrived at her office. Harry had been promoted to head of office after capturing more than half of the Ex-Death Eaters. Fudge, of course, had been kicked out of office for not listening to Dumbledore's advice about Lord Voldemort when it could have really counted. He had been replaced by none other than one of Barty Crouch's understudies. Hermoione arrived at her desk and found three files that lay open on it. Two were bios of some more Ex-Death Eaters that had been sighted recently, but one was new. It was a clipping from a muggle newspaper about the mysterious disappearance of a boy that was supposably linked with the appearnce and disappearnce of a strange man that did not say a word to anyone for the week he was there. She was busy reading the article when a voice whispered her name into her ear.

"Hermione..."

"Harry! Don't do that, you know how much it creeps me out!" She said over Harry's laughter.

"Wow, I didn't know you could jump that high without moving your legs."

"God Harry.... Now what do you want?"

"Hey, now, thats no way to treat your head of department you know."

"Well then," she said sexily as she slowly moved toward him,"do you want me to try something else?" She pushed him back into the chair behind him as he said,

"Yeah, sure, just pick a time and date and I'll be in -" SLAP.

"You know I'm not going to do that, as much as you want me, I don't think so. Now, why is this article on my desk? Isn't this more of Hibbins' kind of thing?"

"Well, I started to put it on his desk, but then I actually read the article. It mentions later that the man was wearing a black leather trench coat, with what looked like a green shirt and black pants underneath. It also gave his description: 'The man was said to have very whitish-blonde hair, and had very pale skin...'. Sound familiar to you?"

With that, she took the article out of his hands and started to read it completly. She searched for clues in the article, which direction he was headed and who had seen him during the weeklong stay.

"Yes, haha, we finally got him, we may even be able to arest him for this!"

"Not quite, Herms. Several things: One, we have no evidence of what he did to Ron, and two, this might not even be him. I just need you to go up to the town and check around, but dont get to people too worked up about it. Here," He gave her a faux poiceman's badge," Use this if you need to, no doubt people will want to know who you are. And as a personal note from me, if you find him, kick his ass for me. Literally."

"Sure thing Harry." With that, she picked up the badge, pulled on a coat, and promptly got a lift to the foyer. She looked once more at her destination, then aparated into thin air.

After waiting for about 10 minutes, a valet popped out of thin air with her car. She thanked him, then got in. 'God, I hate when they turn my car into a portkey,' she thought. She drove to a small town about 20 minutes away.

As she pulled up, an authorative looking man stepped out of the building to her left. She pulled over and stopped in front of the building. She stepped out of the car and offered her hand to the man.

"Hello, I'm Detective Johnson, I was sent over because of the report of a small child that went missing. I read the article in the local paper about it, it was given to me before the case." She showed him the article, and leaned up against the car, waiting for him to speak. He took the article, then showed her inside.

He offered her a chair, which she took, and then sat down behind his desk. "Detective Johnson, I'm the local sheriff, Nathanial Pace. What do you need to know? This article covers most of the aparrent story, and we haven't found out much more. We've sent out two search parties, but we only found the boy's shoe print and a small pice of his shirt that was caught on a thorn bush."

"Hmmm," Hermione thought for a minute, then asked a question on a different note. "The man that you said disappeared around the same time, have you found any clues that he is with the boy?"

"Not as of yet, be we do belive them to be together."

"Not necesarily. Now tell me, who's child was this?"

"The boy? He was the son of the General store owner. What difference does that make?"

"Well, it makes a good bit of difference. Why didn't the man allegedly kidnap the mayor's child, for example? If he was after money or information, he might be able to get what little there is out of the mayor, who would have more money and more acess to information than the Gerneral store owner. No, I think the child just happened to wander off the same night he left. Even though, we can't rule out kidnap. How old was the boy?"

"He is about 12, and yes, he likes being outdoors."

"Good, you're starting to think along my lines. Can you arrange a meeting later for all the people, or as many as you can get?"

"I'll do it."

"Thank you, Sherriff." She stood up to leave.

"And thank you, detective." He stood up and shook her hand again. "I should have them all notified and I'll arrenge the meeting for, in say, two hours?"

"Sounds good. Goodby!" She turned and welked out of his office, and got back into her car. Now what was she going to do for the next two hours? Well that was esay enough to answer. Get some coffee. She searched around for a little while, then found a coffee shop. She went inside and ordered some coffee, then grabbed a paper off the table. Her coffee arrived, and she continued reading the paper for the next hour or so until she thought of something. What if the boy had talked to the alleged Draco, and Draco encouraged him to run off into the woods and stay for a while until after he got away? But what would he have talked to the boy for? And why would he have encouraged his leaving? She heard the door open, and looked up to see who it was. It was the sherriff. He walked over to her.

"Ahh, there you are, detective. The meetings going to start half an hour early, and I wanted you to be there beforehand so we can get started immediatly."

"Sounds like a plan to me." She stood up, paid for her coffee, then got back into her car, following Pace to the meeting hall. They arrived about 15 minutes early, and people were already starting to arrive. I guess they like this kid, she thought.

Fifteen minutes later, when it looked like noone else was coming, the sherriff started the meeting.

"Ok, everyone, thanks for coming. This is Detective Johnson, she's here to investigate the strange man that showed up and the disapperance of Tommy. Detective," he motioned for her to begin.

"Hello everyone. There are somethings I need to know. First of all, where did he stay?"

A woman spoke up in the crowd. "He stayed in one of the rooms in my inn. He never said anything, just paid for his room and food, and stayed out of the inn most of the time."

"Thank you ma'am. Have you been in the room to clean up?"

"No, Detective, I left it like it was. The sherriff roped it off for an investigation."

"Great. Now, did anyone, I mean _anyone_, talk to the man while he was here?"

A small girl, whom Hermione had been told was the girls sister stepped forward slowly.

"I did..."


	3. The Treehouse

Hermione just about ran up to the girl and asked her everthing she could think

of, but she stopped herself before she could scare the girl out of her mind. She nodded to the girl, then said loudly, "Thank you everyone for coming, this should help me find your son," she pointed to the boy's father," and the man who might have taken him. If I need to arrange another meeting, I'll talk the the sherriff, and im sure he'll tell everyone. Thank you again." She turned to the sherriff and told him to arrange another search party for the afternoon and even into the night if needed.

"Sure thing, Detective. And, thank you, as well."

Hermione smiled and nodded to him, then walked over to the little girl. She kneeled down beside her. "Hello," she said gently," I'm Detective Johnson, and I'm looking for your brother, as I'm sure a smart young lady like yourself would know." Herms stood up, then asked her father, "Do you mind if I ask her a few questions?"

He told her no, to go right ahead. She took the little girls hand, and they walked across the road to the playground. They got up in the jungle gym, then they started talking.

"So," Hermoine began," what's your name?"

"Amy Hotchkins," the girl replied.

"Thats a nice name, Amy. So, tell me, how old are you?"

"I turn eleven in three weeks," Amy said proudly.

"Well, good for you," Hermione said with a smile. "Now, about this man-"

"He didn't take my brother, he was our freind,"Amy said defensivly.

"Its ok, I didn't really think he had anyway."

"You didn't? Everyone else does though."

"Well, I'm different from everyone else, now aren't I?" The girl nodded. She had no idea how different Hermione actually was from everyone else in the town. "Now, your friend, did he tell you his name?"

Very hesitantly, the girl nodded. "He- he said it was," but she stopped.

"Its ok, Amy, I'm not going to tell anyone."

"He said it was Draco," she said quickly, "But I always called him Drake, I liked it better."

Hermione had to work hard to keep from jumping up in excitement. _ 'I'm finally going to catch him!' _she thought. Hermoine pulled out a pad and wrote this down. "Don't worry, this is just so I will remember, I can't remember somethings well, especially names. Can you tell me what he looked like?"

"Well, he was really tall, and his hair was really blonde, and his eyes were grey. I liked his eyes. They remind me of winter, and I love the winter cause it snows in the winter. And, ohh, he was pretty too."

"Thank you, I think I have what I need to remember him. How close are you and your brother?"

"We're really close. We tell each other everything. That was how I met Drake. Tommy brought me to him. We would usually talk over there." She pointed to a bench on the edge of the playground, near the woods. "Sometimes, we would walk around in the woods too. He made us a really cool treehouse one day, but I don't know how he did it."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it was just before lunch, and so we had to go home to eat, and when we came back out into the woods, where he was, he had made the treehouse. It is soooo cool, it was almost like magic. You won't tell anyone about it, will you?"

'And she has no clue how right she is' Hermione thought as she made a mental note to look over that way in the woods. "No, of course not, it will be our secret."

"Umm, Detective Miss? Can I go get something to eat? I haven't had lunch yet."

"Yes, Amy, go right ahead. I'll see you around some time."

"OK!" Amy yelled over her shoulder as she ran across the playground back over to the general store.

Everyone had dismissed from the meeting hall, and some men had been sent into the woods. There was a little cloud cover, so Hermione dicided to not risk getting caught in the rain, so she went to the hotel. Getting out of the car, she looked up at the hotel. It was two stories high, with three windows along the front of the first floor, and four along the front on the second floor. The door took the place of the extra window on the first floor. She stepped inside the door.

"Oh, hello Detective, I had a feeling I'd be seeing you in here soon. How can help you?"

"A couple things actually. One, I came to see the man's room, and two, I'm going to need a room for the night. I'd actually like to stay in the man's room, if I can knock down two birds with the same stone."

The hotel owner smiled. "I think that can be arranged." She handed Hermione the key to 201, which she presumed was the first room on the second floor.

There were 10 rooms in the hotel, four on the first floor and six upstairs. She went to her room, which had police tape on the door, stepped in, and pulled the tape off at the same time. Balling the tape up in her hand, she looked into the room. There was a queen sized bed on the right side of the room, with a closet on her left as she stepped into the room. The small bathroom was to her right, behind a door. There was a tv on the dresser across from the foot of the bed, up against the opposite wall. The room was very neat, surprisingly enough. She walked over the the desk that was under one of the two windows in her room, which overlooked the main road of the town. Yep, Draco was definatly the one who came here. The tip off was the word Galleon on a map that layed out on the desk. _'That was too easy. Something is up.'_she thought. But even still, she literally jumped with joy at her realization. She found a pad that had some clean sheets of paper on it, then quickly wrote Harry a note. At the end she told him not to tell anyone yet, it was a personal thing between them for now. She folded it up, then put the exact address of the destination on the outside: British Ministry of Magic, Level 2, Aurors' Headquaters, Harry Potter. She pulled out her wand, then muttered 'Teleportus', a simple yet useful spell she had devised. It would teleport the letter to the exact location written on the outside of the folded letter. Only a few people used it, namely her fellow undercover aurors and close freinds to protect from a muggle seeing a random owl go swooping through the usually small town they were in, and plus it provides for quicker communication. She saw a wastebasket beside the desk and dropped the police tape into it, but not before noticing something. There was a peice of paper half burned in the basket. She pulled it out, then read what was left

'...got... to a gree to kill C.........dge because of what he did to....... Owl me back to tell me when and where, and I will tell him.

your bud,

......."

Most of it was burned, but what she could guess who has a long enough name to fill that blank, and did something to piss someone off. Piss a lot of people off, actually.

It was dark out, and Hermione looked at her watch. 8:13, it said. Even though it was early, she decided to turn in. It had been a long day, and tomrrow would be too.

**Hope I didn't leave you with too much of a cliffhanger this time. I write in class and that was what I had written so far. Hope I didn't do too bad.**

**Oh, and the origonal disclaimer still standes : Don't own the chars, do own the plot, steal, and I'll sue.**


	4. The Apartment

**sorry people, my schedule changed and so now im going to be updating on thursdays, when i have more time, so just expect them around this time of week.**

**---**

Hermione streched her arms as she sat up in bed. Her watch said the time was 6:15. Oddly enough, the room didn't have an alarm clock. She climbed out of her bed, discarding her night gown on the way to the shower. She went over yesterday's facts and today's schedule as the hot water turned on. Fifteen minutes and a hot shower later, she dried off in the bathroom, and got ready for the day. As she was walking out the door, ready for a hard day's work, she checked her watch again. 7:00, right on time.

She dropped by the coffee shop to have some coffee and read the news paper. There wasn't much reason for her to read the paper, she got all her news from a paper teleported to her room that morning, with a note that simply said, "Be careful. -Harry." attached to it. It was simple, yes, but she knew it was his way of caring for her. After she had finished her coffee, she paid and went back out to her car.

_'Where to go now?' _she thought to herself. _'I guess I should check out this treehouse.' _She shifted into gear, then drove across town to the playground. Parking on the west side, in the parking lot next to the woods, she grabbed her coat from the backseat, then got out to take a walk. She saw a path at the edge of the woods that she took.

After about ten minutes of walking, something on the ground caught her eye. She picked it up, then turned it over. It was a handwritten note.

'You can find the Hotchkin kids' treehouse ten paces behind you, in an oak tree.'

"What is that supposed to mean?" she said to herself. Hermione turned around, to see a treehouse materializing in the oak tree she had just passed. "A secret kept treehouse? This has to be important."

She retraced her footsteps to the tree, then climbed up the ladder. Inside, she found what looked to be a pretty large apartment. She shut the hatch behind her, then took a look around. There was a full sized kitchen, complete with an oven, a microwave, and a dishwasher, and plenty of dishware, silver ware, and cook books. She walked over to the fridge and opend it. Just like she thought. It had anything you would ever need to make anything, and even wines and spirits for curry. There was a table on the other side of the island that completed the kitchen. She walked around the island and the table to the den, where there was a (big surprise) a huge TV facing a L shaped couch, and a fireplace across from the other side of the couch not facing the TV. She spotted a door, which led to the bedroom, which she walked into. There was a king sized bed, with a queen sized bunk bed above it.

"Looks like these kids got on Draco's good side, or at least he liked them. Or maybe he's trying to cover something up." She spotted two more doors in the room, other than the one she came through. "Yeah, he liked them a lot alright." She opened the door closest to her first, which turned out to be a large walk-in closet. She looked around a little bit, then went back to open the other door. She pulled the other door open and felt her mouth drop.

This door opened up into a gargantuan bathroom. The floor was made of what appeard to be silver marble tiles, with smaller green diamond shaped pices of marble inlaid into it The bathtub was about the size of a personal swimming pool. And what other to be on the bottom of the pool than a giant green snake, the bottom still being the same material as the rest of the floor. "Well he's defiantly still got his house pride." She had to admit though, it did look good. Off to the side of the room was the rest of the necesary elements of the bathroom. Before she left the room, she glanced back at the pool, and realized it had the same knobs around the edge as the prefect's bathtub back at Hogwarts.

As Hermione walked back through the apartment, she payed attention to the fine details, such as the crown and foot boards on the walls were all carved with small snakes, and the trimming around the doors had the same mahogany woodwork. The bed posts were carved with snakes wrapped around them. Carved on the head of the bed was none other than more mahogany snakes, and the words 'Carpe Diem'.

"Hmm," Hermione said with amusement," Carpe Diem. How fitting." Suddenly, glowing script started appearing on the wall to her left. She had forgotten she pulled out her wand when she entered the apartment, and 'Carpe Diem' must have been a revealing charm for her to figure out. She turned to read the text.

"Well done, my dear Hermione, it seems you have been put on the exact path that I figured you would be. Well, as you may have guessed, this apartment is magical. Yes, you love my sarcastic remarks, don't you. And you being here means that you were sent to find the boy Tommy, which is at this moment, having a letter delivered to him by my owl, which was triggered by you activating this message. He will show up here in approximatly 20 minutes to an hour, depending on which hiding place he is using. In the mean time, let me fill you in. First, I would like to tell you about this house. It is, of corse, a secret kept house, and that message you picked up was a letter from yours truly, which makes me the secret keeper, does it not? I take pride in my craftsman ship. No doubt you liked the bathroom, yes?", Hermione was a little spooked out. How did he know what she was going to do? "And now that I have you creeped out, let me tell you, that you aren't the only bloody genius one that graduated our year from Hogwarts. Am I not correct when I say that we got rather close in our last year, and we were nearly cuaght together? And yes, I enjoyed that year as much as you did. Now let me tell you something else. I was not the one to torture Ron on that fateful day so long ago. I was actually in Transylvania visiting an old freind when your Ron was captured. Exactly what I was doing there, I won't tell you now, it needs to be a more personal thing than this. How about when we meet? Sounds good to me too. I'll tell you about that note you found in my room too, unless they cleaned it out. Then I'll tell you about the note you didn't find in our, I mean my, room. We can meet at the London train station. Get on the train to Germany, in compartment 71, it will be empty. I will come in 10 minutes after the train starts moving. And I will know if you told someone. Potter counts as someone, since he is your boss. So, London to Germany,platform 7, 12:15 train, compartment 71. Tomorrow. Until then, ta ta, I think Tommy should be showing up soon. Take care now.

Hermione was nearly shaking. He had predicted her exactly, even her questions. She walked back into the kitchen, then made herselfa white russian. She had found the vodka in the mini-fridge she had missed earlier. It was camoflaged with the same front as the cabinets around it. She collapsed onto the couch in front of the fire.

About 5 minuets and another white russian later, the missing boy Tommy came up through the hatch in the floor. He shut the hatch, locked it, then looked over at Hermione.

"Are you here because you belive Drake?"

"Yes, thats exactly why I'm here." Hermione replied to the boy's obviously rehearsed question.

"Good. We can go now." He unlocked the hatch, and climbed right back down it. Hermione hid her wand and followed him. They walked the ten minutes back into town, got in her car, then drove quickly back over to the sherriff station. They got out and walked in. The instant they were in the Sherriff's office, he was on his feet, making sure Tommy was OK.

Hermione smiled in amusement. "He's ok sherriff, I made sure before I brought him over. He says he a little hungry though."

"Detective, how can we ever thank you?"

"All in a day's work, sherriff. How about you call Tommy's father and make sure he's ok."

"But what about the man?"

"He had nothing to do with Tommy disappearing. It was just a coincidence."

"Glad to hear it." The sherriff promptly called the boy's father.

Hermione pulled the boy over to the side. "You will hear from me and Drake. Don't tell anyone about that wonderful treehouse, ok?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Good. Take care now." She stood up, said some quick goodbys to the sherriff, who had just gotten off the phone, and his secretary, then quickly left before anyone could stop her to ask questions.

"And now," she said to herself as she was speeding out of the town, "the real adventure begins."


	5. 13 Baker Street

**Sorry for the long break in typing my story, I just lost interest because there weren't many people commenting. But now, on with the show.**

**--**

After around 30 minutes of driving down the dirt road, Hermione decided to stop and ask for directions. She pulled over to the side of the road, then pulled out a notepad she had in the center console, as well as a pen. She jotted down a note to Harry asking for directions to London from her current location. She checked her watch, which read 3:17, then addressed it to his office. If it had been much later, then she would have been forced to send it to his home, which she found amusing, since its address was identical to Sir Aurther Connan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, 13 Baker Street. She sent it, then picked up her CD case to flip through. She had an odd taste for music, shown so by her Beethoven CD sitting next to her Korn and Beatles CDs. After putting in AC-DC's Back in Black, she sat back and silently mouthed the words to the songs until Harry's message popped back.

"Sorry, the board meeting just let out, and the lifts are slow as usual, but since that doesn't matter, I'll tell you that I had to pick something up from the enchanted muggle artifacts office. You remember those regurgitating toilets? Two more popped up last night. But anyways, stay on this road, then turn right on the highway a little down the way, and it will feed you back to London. That black car you have can't be liking those dirt roads out there. But I suppose a cleaning charm helps with that. If you want, you can stay at my place tonite, you still have a ways to go, and it will be dark before you get back. Plus, I'd just like a little company for tonite, but no, not like that. Get your head out of the gutter, Herms. Well anyways, see you later.  
Harry" 

"That perv," she muttered to herself, but she was chuckling. She put the car back in gear, then sped off down the road. He was right, she realized, the dust should be coating her car, but she had a dust repelling charm on the car, so it stayed spotless. After about 15 miles, she turned onto the highway, and started back to London.

She pulled up to 13 Baker Street at 8:49. He was right again, but he didn't know it. It would be easier for her to get to the train station in the morning from his house, which was convinently just 8 blocks down and 11 blocks over. A lot closer than trying to get there from her house. Also, with knowledge that Draco was supposably innocent and presumably in town, she didn't like the idea of being alone in the country side, regardless of what kind of person he may have been in the past. She climbed out of the car and walked up the steps to be met by Harry at the door.

"You know, that car of yours can be pretty loud at night."

"Yes, I know, but it's all good, attention can be nice, but not too much attention. I'm sure you would know"

"I can't say that I've been denied that. But come on in, its getting a little chilly outside."

They walked into his house to be greeted by a warm living room. She knew how his house was set up, she had been here many times before. After going to the bathroom and checking her hair, she wandered into the kitchen to find Harry looking thoughtfully into his liquor cabinet. 

"Do you want anything?" he asked her.

"Hmm, well, do you have any triple sec?" He looked around the bottles in front, then reached in and pulled out one.

"For you, always."

"Thanks Harry, I've needed something rough to think over." She reached out to grab a bottle of vodka he was holding. As he turned to the fridge he asked if she was making a Kamakazi. She nodded then added, "Hey boss, I've got somewhere to be tomrrow, do you think you can work without me?" They had come up with this as a simple but effective way of telling each other that they were on a case, but they weren't supposed to tell anyone about it.

"Yeah, I think I can deal without you for a while. Just don't be gone too long, we wouldn't want you missing all the action of hoarding in the Death Eaters." He watched as she added the lemon juice he had just handed her to the shot glass of triple sec and vodka. She downed it, then motioned to him to ask if he wanted some. "No thanks, I think I'm going to lay off the rough liquor for tonite. Hey, is something wrong? You seem really spaced out."

"No, I think I'll be fine in the morning, I'm just tired from driving and thinking this stuff over." It was true, she had thought about everything that could go wrong and everything that had been a lie over these last 10 months since Ron was abducted.

"Ahh ok. Well, some good news from St. Mundo's today, Ron is writing and speaking legitamently and coherently."

"Really? That's wonderful! If you go see him while I'm gone, tell him that I'll be in once I get back from work, ok?"

"Will do. Well, I'm tired and feel like sleeping, so I think I will finish this," he held up his martini glass," and go to bed. I'll leave the master bed open for you, and I will retire to the guest room." It annoyed Hermione the way he would use such proper English sometimes. But oh well.

"Oh, no, you don't have to do that, there's a reason it's called a "guest" room."

"I suppose. But who cares, you get to have the bigger bed, I have to be somewhere really early, and I wouldn't want to disturb you from your unneeded beauty sleep, so I insist. Goodnight now, sleep tight."

"Oh alright, well, you too then, ok?"

"Will do." He turned and headed up the stairs while Hermione poured herself another Kamakazi as a nightcap. She put up the liquor and lemon juice, drank her glass thoughfully, then headed up to the master bedroom to go to sleep.

She woke up the next morning at 10, to be greeted by an empty house and a note on the fridge that Harry gave his luck and hope with. She still had around 2 hours until she had to be up at the train station, so she put off her shower and picked up the paper after starting some coffee to be brewed. With her coffee finished and nothing interesting in the news, she finished off the comic strips in the middle of the paper, then headed upstairs to take a shower. After her routine shower, she went to the guest closet that held some of Hermione and Ron's extra clothes. There was a similar closet at those two's houses, each with the proper extra wardrobe. She pulled out a red, mid arm length, form fitting shirt and some tight fitting jeans to put on, then headed back to the bathroom for the rest of her morning preparation. She emerged from the bathroom fully clothed and ready to leave for the train station, pausing only momentarily for her wand, her keys, and her coat, then locked up Harry's place and got into her car at precisly 11:30. That gave her plenty of time to get to the train station and find the right train. She pulled out of her tight parking place, then headed east to cover the first 7 blocks of her trip.

Twenty minutes later, she arrived at the train staion, parking in the extended parking area. Ignoring the usual stares from the car enthusiasts as she climbed out of her car, she grabbed her coat and headed into the station. After finding the ticket booth and getting a ticket for the 12:15 to Berlin from Platform 7, with two extended midway stops at Paris and a town in Poland, she quickly walked over to her platorm and loaded the train near the end. Looking at the compartment numbers, she realized that this was a very long train, because she was standing in the third to last car next to compartment 122. She walked towards the front of the train until she came to compartment 71, the first one following what she recognized to be a large observation car. Setting down her jacket, she closed the door after her and put her bag filled with her reserve necessities and several changes of clothes into the over head rack. She looked around the unsually large compartment, which contained a bathroom and a small tv even, then slid into the front side seat by the window, her usual seat on any train, and waited out the next 7 minutes until the train started moving by going over what she knew. As the train lurched into motion, her stomach tied itself in knots as she prepared to meet a man she hadn't seen in over 5 years, if the Abduction Draco really was a different person than the soon to be met Train Draco. Ten minutes later, she heard a rap on the compartment window, which was opened by a tall, shockingly blonde man.

"Hey Herms, its me. The real me that is."


	6. London to Berlin, First leg

**w00t, I feel loved. I got a comment from a girl from Argentina, so its all good. Now for chapter 6. After this chapter, I'm going to have to give my head a rest, I can't keep writing a chapter a day without writer's block. Anyways, if any of you want to beta for me, just tell me, I don't really care about having one, its just that sometimes its better to confirm that what you're saying makes sense to other people too. Besides the ones in your head that is.**

**---**

Hermione was almost shocked that he had shown up, let alone ontime. He glanced down at his watch.

"Damn, I'm early. But hey, it's all good, right?"

"Y-yeah, I guess so," she managed to stutter after he had taken a seat across from her.

"Ha ha, what, did you not expect me? You know this Malfoy never breaks his promises. Ever. So how have you been in these last six years? You've definatly gotten a lot hotter since the last time I met you."

"Yeah, thats what your other self said too. But who was that, if it really wasn't you? Because I can't think of anyone who would want to do anything to hurt Ron like that. You do know as much as what happened to Ron, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, I do. I'm not that under informed. As for who it was, I have no idea. But lets not talk about it right now, I'm tired from running from everyone who thinks I actually did it."

"Put it off? But we can't do that, we need to talk about it to get everything sorted out. If we put it off, then we won't be able to cover everything."

"Hermione, smartest witch of our age, why don't you think about our destination? The train trip is over two and a half days, plus 2 eight hour stops in the middle, as well as the shorter ones. Then we also have the week long stay and the trip back. We have plenty of time to talk it over." He was right, she realized. They really would have a lot of time. But wait...

"When did I agree to staying with you for the week? All I agreed to was taking the train trip with you."

"True, but I was hoping you would. It would be nice to sit down and talk with someone that's not going to try to send me to the aurors immediatly, even seeing as you are one. Right now, I ask that we take the train trip as freinds, not as a business thing." She thought over what he was saying, than asked,

"So your saying that if I put off work for around a week and a half, then we'll talk about it then, and until then we can take a trip as old freinds?"

"Exactly."

"But why should I belive you? If it turns out that you just want to get away for a couple weeks and have your ass covered until we part, not to mention that you probably have gotten a little lonely in your jumping around and running from the aurors."

"I thought you might say that. So, as a treat, I have invited a freind of mine to join us at the Paris stop, which is conveiniently at night. She is an old, 'old' freind of the family."

"Don't tell me you're planning on bringing a -"

"Damn straight I'm planning on bringing a vampire onto this train. And it just so happens that she was the one I was with the night your Ron got attacked. And if you don't belive me, then you can give both of us Veritaserum. We won't object. Undoubtably you have some with you."

"Yes, I do. All aurors are required to carry some with them in the event of an emergency need. But wait, if you have been with vampires, then the obvious question is-"

"No, I'm not a halfling. No Malfoy has ever been a vampire, we have just had them as next to servant like aquaintences. My 4 times great grandmother showed them how to stay alive in the day, so they have been in servitude to us since."

"So she's the one that nearly caused a collapse in the entirty of human society."

"Ahh, yes, and she took much pride in it. So now, anyone that I, being the last Malfoy, say not to hurt, they will not touch, due to a blood signed contract by Dracula's daughter, Ayantara. And she didn't like giving up the blood to sign it, she told me herself."

"So I'm assuming that she is the one joining us?"

"That is correct."

"So what have you been doing since-" There was a knock on the door, followed by a voice that was the condutor asking for tickets. They opened the door and he quickly punched holes in their tickets, then left again.

"So," Malfoy said as he stood up and walked over to a cabinet Hermione had missed early. As she expected, it had liqour in it. " You want anything to drink?" he asked.

"You know, I do. But first, was this train set up for an extended trip? Because there is a bathroom in the compartments, as well as a private liqour cabinet, and the compartments are larger."

"Ah yes, it is. This train is exclusivly for minimum two day trips. Its an executive train, which my family owns, but its held under a name of some muggle trasport company."

"You mean, Amtrak?"

"Yeah, that sounds right. Theres a small trap door most people never notice thats right," he bent down and opened a door in the floor," here. But it's only in the first of a set of ten compartments, aka, this one. I've checked, and theres no other companies in this car, so we are set for a nice journey. Its a steep staircase, so watch out. There's four seperate rooms to sleep in, as well as a lounge down here, so make yourself at home."

It was only five in the afternoon, but Hermione felt like she had been on her feet all day already.

"Malfoy, I'm going to turn in for a while. DON'T come in, and try not to wake me."

"Ok, but call me Draco alright? We're freinds here."

"Ok, M--Draco." It was going to take some getting used to calling him Draco instead of Malfoy. "Either way, don't come in and don't wake me up. I'll come out when I'm ready. Accio trunk," she muttered the spell under her breath, and her bag came down the stairs and landed by her feet, where she picked it up and carried it into the room she picked out. Before she went into the room, though, she noticed that there was a bathroom in between her compartment and the next. Hermione sat her bag next to the wall, than collapsed onto the bed after locking the door with a couple spells. No matter what he said, she still couldn't bring herself to trust him yet. She quickly fell into an exahusted sleep, and as she did so, she thought she heard the mirror on the wall say, "Sleep well, little one."


	7. London to Berlin, Last Car

Hermione awoke with a start at around four in the morning. The train had jostled a little more than it usually had been, and she was a rather light sleeper, especially on moving vehicles. With no feeling of being able to go back to sleep, she pulled on a pair of scrubs and a loose shirt, then turned on the lights and looked in the mirror on her wall. After gazing into the mirror, she looked at the mirror itself for a moment. At the top of the frame, the words 'Carpe Diem' were carved into it. "Mhmmm," Hermione said to herself. "This train must have either been made recently, or else he has used that for quite some time." Speaking of the train, she thought, why not look around it some more? She pulled back her hair, then, using her wand, unlocked the door and walked into the under-deck lounge area. After sitting in an armchair facing the rather large TV, she thought back to the first time she had a glimpse of the train.

_It had a long, sleek, silver body, with a red, a blue, and a white stripe running down the side, and intertwining. Up near the top of the car __ though, was a straight grayish green streak. For some reason, it seemed__ oddly familiar. She couldn't see the very front of the train in detail, as__ the engines were sticking out of the end of the station. She could see,__ however, that there were about three or four of them, and the very front was__ shaped like on a bullet train engine, narrowed down and very aerodynamic.__ The train was also rather tall, and you gained access through a door in__ about the middle of the train, vertically, at the ends of each car. There__ weren't any numbers on the cars, and they were all connected with bending__ tunnels, for in-movement inter-car migration. The sides of the train were__ slightly bulged out, but for the most part were straight. She couldn't__ tell, but it seemed as if the base of the train was slightly wider than the__ top. "It would make sense," she told herself. "It would be bottom heavy."__ The cars went from one side of the covered part of the station all the way__ to the other, which was a very formidable length, especially for a train.__ Some of the rear of the train was also sticking out of the station and it__ seemed like there were a couple more engines in the rear as well. She__ suddenly realized where she was standing, and came to realize how big the__ train was. She was standing on platform two, and the train was a menacing__ terror over all of the rest. It was mainly length, but also it was a fair__ amount taller than the rest of the trains. "Holy shit, this thing is huge!"__ she said quietly to herself. She quickly strode over to it, and then got in__ a car nearer to the end, hoping to be put in close to her car. She was__ sadly mistaken though._

_"122. Damn, I thought I would have been closer to it than this. Well, here we go."  
_  
"Yes, the height makes sense now that I know there is a second level underneath the main, and the length too. Malfoys show off their money way too much. But who can blame them, they're Malfoys." She found the mini-kitchen of the below deck lounge, then looked in the fridge for something to eat. She had missed dinner, and she was starving. In the freezer she found a couple boxes of hot pockets, some microwavable pasta dinners, and some prime rib steak. "You think that a place with as much class as this wouldn't have hot pockets and TV dinners, wouldn't you?" said a sleepy voice over her shoulder. She spun around to find Malfoy hunched over in a chair, with his elbows on the counter, rubbing his eyes. 

"Malfoy! Don't do that, you scared me half to death!"

"So, if I scare you again, would you be dead, or would you just be a fourth live?" 

"Wha-? Oh shut up you," she finished as he started chuckling. She hit him  
on the shoulder with the wooden spoon she had pulled out of a drawer when he scared her.

"Ow! Hey, that hurt!"

"Hmph. Serves you right."

"No, a good waiter serves me right, not being hit on the shoulder with a wooden spoon, let alone on the shoulder recovering from surgery." She almost felt sorry for him for a second. Until she remembered that wizards don't have surgery, they just get a healer to fix them up. 

"Uhh huh. Nice try, but you lose. But what are you doing up at this time anyway?"

"I should ask you the same question, you're the one who woke me up. My door was open and the light from your room scared my cat, who promptly caused me a lot of pain by jumping on my balls."

"Oh, sorry. But that would make it your cat's fault, not mine."

"Don't you go blaming anything on Draco Jr."

"Draco Jr.? Wouldn't that be the same as Little Draco?" She laughed at the thoughts that the idea gave her. 

"What? No, it wouldn't be, its Draco Jr., or Drake for short. What are you laughing about?"

"Haha, oh, nothing."

"Riiiiiiight. But anyways, you never answered my question, what are you doing up at this time of night?" 

"Oh, I'm just a light sleeper. I was going to get out of this place and wander around a bit, so, do you want to wander around with me? It would keep me from being as bored as I would have been."

"As bored?"

"Yep, as bored. Which means don't think of you as a complete source of entertainment, just on occasion you can be." She thought back to her last year of school at Hogwarts. 

"Well, I suppose I could say the same about you too. But sure, I'll walk around with you, I might save you from getting lost."

"Malfoy-"

"Draco."

"Malfoy, there's two directions you can go on this train: forward, to the front of the train, and backwards, to the rear. Explain to me how I could get lost."

"Well, uhh...I, umm... you could, erm... oh I don't know, shut up." She  
started to giggle again. "Shall we go then?"

"Yeah sure, why not." He led her to the stairs, and they went up into  
compartment 71. "You know, I'm not a dog and I'm not stupid, I think I can remember how to get out of here."

"Well, you never know. We are talking about you still." Hermione glared at him, then felt something brush up against her leg, and jumped away from it and into his arms. "It looks like you sure have come around." She looked down and saw what must be Drake. 

"Oh shut up you, its just your cat." She went to stand back up, but found herself pulled up next to him by his arms. Her mind scrambled to figure out what to do. If she rejected him here, then he might not try again, and she would lose her chance to get close enough to him to figure out what really happened to Ron, and why someone would have done something like that. If she didn't, though, she might get distracted from her investigation and never find out what happened to Ron at all. "You know, I like you a lot, but you know what?"

"What, Herms?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, I don't think we should. I mean, I'm just now seeing you for the first time since, I supposedly didn't see you take off with Ron. I just don't know how much you've changed, and I've changed some I know." She looked up at him somewhat sadly then suddenly smiled. "Besides, I'm on the job, you konw, and I don't get paid for pleasure, unfortunatly."

Reluctantly, he backed off, a little disappointedly. "Well then, I guess I'll just have to show you who I am before we go there, yeah?"

"I think I can settle on that."

They started off down the train, towards the end, because he said that he could get them access into the engines, and at the very end, the caboose, there was a big window that they could look out of. 

"So you really do own this train then?"

"Yep, and it's relatively new, as you might have guessed."

"Yes, I saw the engraving on the mirror, and speaking of which, it talked to me too." 

"It did? I thought I was the only one it would ever talk to."

"Oh, it only told me to sleep well just before I went to sleep."

"Ahh, ok. It must have figured out that you were a witch somehow, maybe it saw your wand." 

"Yes that makes sense, because I do believe it could have."

"But wait, did you lace this train with magical artifacts?"

"Here and there, but not a lot of them."

"You know, I could have you arrested for threatening the secrecy of the magical world." 

"True, but I don't really care. It pays off to have something you can have a conversation with when you're alone."

"Only you would know. Wait, does that mean that you've been traveling  
around in this?"

"For the most part, yes, but not the entirety of my journeys."

"Where all have you been?"

"Just about anywhere with a train station big enough to house this thing."

"Was it originally made to fit the London station? Because the specs just barely allow it to fit." 

"Yes, it was, but I added three more cars and two more engines, so it stick out of the station some now."

"Are there observation cars between all of the compartment cars?"

"No, the observation cars are part of all the compartment cars. There's an observation area in each car, followed by ten compartments, five on each side of the train, with a hallway down the middle." 

By this time they were at the end of the 12th compartment car, the 16th car on the train and last compartment car. Draco talked with the conductor for a bit, then showed him something he pulled out of his pocket. Hermione found the look on the conductor's face rather amusing. They were allowed to the very end of the train, where many pieces of glass were arranged so that the entire end of the train was a large window, and the ceiling above was a skylight. From the rear-facing couch, you could see out of the train using all of your peripheral vision, not counting down. The end room was upstairs from the rest of the engine, and the door was lockable. Draco shut the door behind them, then locked it with the lock and spells. He turned and gazed over at her.

"So, what do you want to talk about?"

**Yeah, I wanna give major props to my beta, Thanks K, you really helped me out a lot. so yeah. hope you lot enjoyed this chapter.**


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